LOSARTAN an ARB blocker may help SARCOPENIA

SARCOPENIA
Losartan Restores Skeletal Muscle Remodeling and Protects Against Disuse Atrophy in Sarcopenia
Tyesha N. Burks1, Eva Andres-Mateos1, Ruth Marx1, Rebeca Mejias1, Christel Van Erp1, Jessica L. Simmers1, Jeremy D. Walston2, Christopher W. Ward3 and Ronald D. Cohn1,4,*
+ Author Affiliations

1McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA.
2Division of Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA.
3University of Maryland School of Nursing, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA.
4Department of Pediatrics and Neurology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA.
*↵To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: rcohn2@jhmi.edu
ABSTRACT

Sarcopenia, a critical loss of muscle mass and function because of the physiological process of aging, contributes to disability and mortality in older adults. It increases the incidence of pathologic fractures, causing prolonged periods of hospitalization and rehabilitation. The molecular mechanisms underlying sarcopenia are poorly understood, but recent evidence suggests that increased transforming growth factor–β (TGF-β) signaling contributes to impaired satellite cell function and muscle repair in aged skeletal muscle. We therefore evaluated whether antagonism of TGF-β signaling via losartan, an angiotensin II receptor antagonist commonly used to treat high blood pressure, had a beneficial impact on the muscle remodeling process of sarcopenic mice. We demonstrated that mice treated with losartan developed significantly less fibrosis and exhibited improved in vivo muscle function after cardiotoxin-induced injury. We found that losartan not only blunted the canonical TGF-β signaling cascade but also modulated the noncanonical TGF-β mitogen-activated protein kinase pathway. We next assessed whether losartan was able to combat disuse atrophy in aged mice that were subjected to hindlimb immobilization. We showed that immobilized mice treated with losartan were protected against loss of muscle mass. Unexpectedly, this protective mechanism was not mediated by TGF-β signaling but was due to an increased activation of the insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1)/Akt/mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) pathway. Thus, blockade of the AT1 (angiotensin II type I) receptor improved muscle remodeling and protected against disuse atrophy by differentially regulating the TGF-β and IGF-1/Akt/mTOR signaling cascades, two pathways critical for skeletal muscle homeostasis. Thus, losartan, a Food and Drug Administration–approved drug, may prove to have clinical benefits to combat injury-related muscle remodeling and provide protection against disuse atrophy in humans with sarcopenia.